The Hand of Ethelberta

First published in 1876, this novel follows Ethelberta, a young widow of humble birth whose father is a butler, as she becomes a fashionable poet and public storyteller in London while hiding her family. Suitors of different ranks, including a musician she once loved and men of money or title, press her as she tries to house and advance her many brothers and sisters. Town drawing-rooms, a seaside hotel, and Wessex houses form the stages of a comedy of class and performance. The book is a social novel about disguise and marriage as livelihood, not a rural tragedy of the later Hardy type.

Bound in orange-brown cloth. Light brown or grey slipcase.